A report for Fire and Emergency Services, Bushfire Protection Branch

Abstract

Bushfire threat analysis (BFTA) is an assessment of the comparative risk of damage resulting from bushfires in Western Australia (Muller 2008). It is based upon the principles laid out in Australian Standard AS/NZS 4360 (2004) which defines risk as the likelihood of occurrence of an event (e.g. bushfire) and the consequences of that event. This analysis has utilised a range of qualitative and quantitative estimates of threat and consequence components to arrive at an overall threat level. It has incorporated the best data available, the published scientific literature, and expert opinion to arrive at the best outcome possible. The document presented builds upon previous work completed for the southwest of Western Australia by Muller (2008). As such, we provide key information necessary for the implementation of the BFTA and describe changes in detail but broader background rationale can be found in Muller (2008). Overall, bushfire threat can be divided into fire likelihood and consequence of fire in an area. Likelihood of bushfire is partitioned into three components; fire behaviour, likelihood of ignition, and suppression capacity. Consequence of bushfire is characterised by values (infrastructure, homes, indigenous sites, biodiversity, etc) in an area.

Mark Broich

Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Played a central research role on the Geospatial Analysis for Environmental Change team and had a key role in building the GAEC lab.

Mirela G. Tulbure

Professor

I am an Associate Professor with the Center for Geospatial Analytics at North Carolina State University (NCSU).